Researchers say the military may employ small robots equipped with advanced three-dimensional vision technology in as little as a year.
The U.S. military plans to use three-dimensional flash laser radar-, or ladar-, equipped robots to explore chemically contaminated areas and researchers see the technology reaching the consumer markets shortly thereafter, the Christian Science Monitor reported Friday.
Current vision technology requires large transportation mediums but ladar allows for much smaller machines.
One researcher hails the program as "one of the holy grails of robotics" to employ advanced vision technology on small systems.
Systems in place now stall on many pedestrian-avoidance trials, but the flash ladar uses radar feed-back technology to produce a 3-D image in a field as wide as one kilometer almost instantaneously.
The program is a joint venture between iRobot, which makes the automated vacuum cleaner Roomba, and Advanced Scientific Concepts.
